Why is there something rather than nothing?

I feel like this question is not asked enough in philosophical discussions, though it ties into the cosmological argument for the existence of God.

Indeed, according to Leibniz, the existence of something means that an explanation is required. For him, this entailed the existence of God.

On the contrary, Hume argued that the universe is something which does not necessarily require a cause.

Though science now tells us that our universe did have one starting point through the Big Bang, many continue to contend that this could be a self sufficient cycle of expansion and contraction whilst others suggest that such an event necessitates God's involvement nontheless.

What are your thoughts?

I always get lambasted for this but, for me, even if the universe contained just a single atom, no material thing can have an infinite number of material causes. And anything material must have an explanation. So something non-material must have caused the first material stuff. And must have done so for a reason. Nothing non-material can have a physical force acting on it. So it must have chosen to create material stuff. Which means it has a consciousness. Which is God. What created God? God Only Knows! A cosmic yawn at the nothingness? But that could have created the first atom - damn!

I feel like this question is not asked enough in philosophical discussions, though it ties into the cosmological argument for the existence of God.

Indeed, according to Leibniz, the existence of something means that an explanation is required. For him, this entailed the existence of God.

On the contrary, Hume argued that the universe is something which does not necessarily require a cause.

Though science now tells us that our universe did have one starting point through the Big Bang, many continue to contend that this could be a self sufficient cycle of expansion and contraction whilst others suggest that such an event necessitates God's involvement nontheless.

What are your thoughts?

The argument proposed by Leibniz (very tasty biscuits that they are) is just the classic God of the Gaps. It also falls into the special pleading fallacy; nothing can just be, except for God.

The Big Bang may have been the starting point for the universe as we know it today but we have no idea what came before. I am comfortable not knowing and don’t feel the need to use this ignorance as rather dubious evidence of something which otherwise has no evidential support.

It's rather logical to assume another natural process has created the conditions for the big bang.

But the problem remains always the same! The problem of infinite regress either either with or without a God.

True, its just one of those unknowables for now, and I’m fine with that but given that we don’t know what seems like a more reasonable thing to do, simply admit we don’t know or add in some magic space daddy as all-purpose plot filler. The latter is just bad writing lol.

Adding a magical force is not helpful at all and it doesn't solve any problem. However I haven't seen any attempts to explain the problem of infinite regress which can we cannot overcome whichever way we spin it, either in the presence of the magical force or in the absence of it.

I see it as a matter of definition rather than an instance of the special pleading fallacy.


I’d put it more like this:

1. Everything that exists either: (A) has a cause / explanation / influence behind it, or (B) it doesn’t have any of these things, and “just is”.

2. If we assume that everything does have these things and falls into category A, then we end up with infinite regressive causation or circular causation. The sequence of events we’re experiencing would have no starting point or initial conditions. Ultimately, when asking why anything exists or behaves the way it does, the buck gets passed forever.

3. The only way to avoid the situation above is to assume the opposite, namely that some things (or at least one thing) falls into category B, whereby it requires no cause, explanation or influence, and it “just is”. Then it can act as a starting point for a subsequent sequence of causation. We don’t specifically know what that thing might be; all we’re saying is that category B is not empty.

4. The word “God” then just becomes a convenient and colloquial way to denote something in category B. Now dependent on your cultural and religious upbringing, that might feel like a very loaded piece of terminology. Western people hearing “God” might think of an old bearded man in the clouds, whilst Eastern people might think of a man with many arms or the head of an elephant. But if we strip out these cultural ascriptions and anthropomorphisms (remembering that we said we don’t specifically know what it is that falls into category B), the word “God” would simply be defined as “something that needs no cause, explanation or influence”.


So we’re not saying that “nothing can just be, except for God”. What we’re saying is that if something can just be, then we will call that thing “God”. (Of course we don’t have to use that word, we could use anything. But at the moment it’s the best I can think of).

This also responds to the common atheist argument that “you disbelieve in so many Gods, and I just disbelieve in one more - what’s the big deal?”. Because there’s a big difference between saying that category B is empty or non-empty; to claim that it is empty is to affirm infinite regression or circular causation, whereas to claim that it is non-empty avoids this.

So why not just put the universe in B and call it a day? Either something can "just be" or it can’t, if it can then the universe can "just be" and you don’t need God, if it can’t then its special pleading to say God can "just be" but the universe can’t.

Sure, you could put the universe in Group B (and according to this definition you’d be saying that “the universe is God”, which is basically the pantheistic position). Then the universe is the way it is “just because it is”. It’s a theoretical possibility for sure.

There are a couple of reasons why I wouldn’t do that though:

Firstly, why commit to specifying the thing(s) that fall into group B if you don’t have the evidence to do so? It’s very difficult to prove that something has no cause, explanation or influence behind it because there could always be predecessors that you just haven’t found yet. I think it would be much more open-ended to just say “I don’t know exactly what it is that falls into group B” until we have further evidence. That way we’re not guessing.

Secondly, it actually seems apparent to me that the physical universe falls into group A rather than B. The fact that we can observe that it behaves in a consistent manner which we can describe with a set of physical laws suggests that it is under some kind of influence, rather than totally free to behave according its own whim. Plus we have the Big Bang theory which of course suggests that the universe as we know it does indeed have a cause (the Big Bang).

You dont need to apply godhood to the universe simply because you put it into B. We lack the understanding to make that kind of claim.

Yes but all of the above applies anytime you want to put a god in column B.

As for the 2nd point, we can see so far back but beyond that we have no idea. The universe as we know it originated in the big bang but whose to say the universe didnt exist in some other form before that.

To avoid us going round in circles, simply put its like this, we dont know. We will likely never know. If you want to put god in this gap have at it but just put it down as faith(inherently illogical) as any attempts to apply logic to it, as we have been discussing here, invariably ends up at special pleading. Thats just the way it is, if religion had proof it wouldnt be need faith lol.

Well, what exactly do you mean by “Godhood”?

The definition I provided earlier for “God” is simply “something in group B”. In which case, yes if you’re putting something in group B (even if it’s the universe or whatever) you’re effectively calling it God.

Whereas if you’re not specifically saying that “the universe is in group B” but you’re just saying “something is in group B”, you don’t have the problem of needing evidence for what exactly that thing is, because you’re not specifying. You’re just saying that group B is non-empty. (And then again, by definition anything in group B can be called “God”).

Okay sure, in that case you don’t mean our universe but a different, earlier universe resides in group B. Well sure it’s a possibility. But as I said, I see no reason to specify it as the only one or the most likely one.

I agree with you that “we don’t know what resides in group B” is the most sensible thing to say here.

But that’s my point; you contradict that if you say “the universe resides in group B”, because now you’re saying that you do know what the thing is. Whereas if you just say “A God of some sort resides in group B,” you’re not claiming to know what is in Group B because you’re not specifying what that God actually is. You’re just giving it the name “God” because that simply means “something in group B”.

Whoa firstly your definition of group B shouldn’t mean god, nor does anything in the wording you used imply anything in group B is a "god". Your wording simply states that something has no prerequisites it just has always been. I did wonder why you immediately said putting the universe in group B would be a pantheistic view lol. If anything in group B is a "god" then we need to re-define the groupings to add a group C, otherwise the whole thing is just a railroad to say "god did it". So, if you want to add a group C which explicitly states “something that can just with god like qualities” that’s fine but I will be using group B as its wording implies which is something can just be without the need to apply god like qualities to it.

Your argument makes more sense now I know you consider group B to be god. However, if we use that logic then anything in group A which has no obvious cause must as a requirement have been created by something in group B. This clearly implies an intelligence in group B, hence my comment above about the whole thing being a railroad to god.

So, to clarify, if something can be in group B then the universe could be in group B, but in no way shape or form does that imply the universe is god, it just means the universe has no prerequisite.

But then you need to explain what exactly you think the word “God” means. What are “god-like qualities”? It’s rather important to establish that first, because that can change the whole matter of whether or not a God exists and whether or not someone believes in God.

I would usually say that I believe in God, but by that I simply mean that I believe something must exist which influences and gives rise to all these caused-events we’re seeing in the world, but without requiring a cause or influence of its own. In other words I believe group B is not empty. That’s what the word “God” means to me; a prime mover, uncaused cause, uncreated creator etc. I don’t claim to know precisely what that thing actually is; I think that if I just tried to guess at it I would probably be wrong.

However if by “God” you necessarily mean some sort of Greek-god style man in the clouds shooting lightning from his fingers whenever he gets angry, or some Hindu style man with eight arms or an elephant’s head, then I can see why you would say “why are you calling the thing in group B a God when it could be just about anything else?”. And you would be right. I don’t believe in these kinds of Gods though. And I probably wouldn’t believe in any other anthropomorphic representation of God either.

So can you clarify what you think the definition of “God” actually is? Because otherwise we might not actually be disagreeing with each other but merely using different words to describe the same thing.

In order for something to be a god it must have intelligence and if this god is what is responsible for group A then by necessity this god must have the typical “magic” powers to create something from nothing. There is a difference between something merely existing without cause and something with intelligence & power existing without cause and only the latter would be a “god” in this context.

I don’t believe in god but logically group B must contain something, however that something does not necessarily require the intelligence and power to create that would be typical of a "god", it could just be the universe.

I think "intelligence" is a somewhat vague term which could mean a lot of things. I'd hesitate to use it as part of the definition of God, given that we can only really understand what intelligence is in the manner that we subjectively experience it within ourselves. Even though I say I believe in God, I wouldn't suppose that it thinks or perceives in the same way that we do, just because we are humans and God (probably) isn't. Maybe it does these things in a different way, or maybe it does something completely different altogether that would be inconceivable to us. I'm not sure how we would specify what exactly constitutes "intelligence" in a God-candidate and then decide whether that intelligence is present or not. It would just become part of the Problem of Other Minds.

Having said that, I would argue that anything in Group B, whether you choose to call it "God" or not, must have certain capabilities in order to meet the criteria for belonging in that group - even if you believe that it's "the universe" or anything else for that matter. For example:

[*]It must have the ability to perform an action, not because it had to do so as a result of some precursive cause or influence, but in a manner that is completely self-determined. It could have performed action X or Y, but it ultimately performed action X, not Y. One could argue that this constitutes the ability to make a "free choice" which is a form of "intelligence". But again that depends on having very precise definitions for these terms.

[*]
[*]Equally, it must have the ability to create or influence things in group A without any dependence on prior conditions, and particularly without requiring pre-existing material to do so (i.e. "out of nothing").

In short, to me it seems like it could be argued that these additional criteria you've given to the definition of "God" could be argued to already necessarily be met by anything that's in Group B anyway, as a consequence of how group B is defined. You might disagree with that; but then in that case, I think we'd need much clearer definitions for what these criteria actually are.